I write this blog from
a little lane in a suburb in Bombay from a house that has recently
been built adjoining an old fishing village. The original inhabitants
of this megacity are the Koli fisherfolk, artisanal and subsistence
fishermen, who for centuries have, and continue to, rely on the ocean
for their sustenance. Almost daily I walk down the street and pass
the Koli women selling fish which the Koli fishermen have caught that
morning. My discerning eye roves over their wares and invariably, in
addition to the usual catch of smaller inshore fish, I find juvenile
tuna and sharks. And as I slow down to make my observation, the Koli
women flash a wide smile and say to me, “Arre, ghey ki”, (Come
on, buy some). I sheepishly smile back, nod my head and walk on.

Instantly my mind
shifts to the deck of the conservation vessel, M/Y Steve Irwin,
where on a recent campaign in the South Indian Ocean, my crew pulled
in critically endangered tuna and sharks from the illegal nets of a
fleet of 6 illegal Chinese vessels. The scale of marine wildlife
caught in the nets then horrified me, but somehow I don’t feel
horrified when I walk past the Koli women selling tuna and sharks at
the fish stall in Bombay.

The lane the author walks down every single day in suburban Bombay. (Sid Chakravarty).

A couple of years ago I
began to study the large-scale, deliberate trafficking of men onto
the distant-water, industrialised fishing vessels. I have continued
to delve into the economics of this industry and have begun to
comprehend how the globalisation of fisheries supply chains has seen
some parts of these supply chains systematically squeezed –
typically at the production end – with profits concentrated near
the end consumer. Most deep sea fishing vessels employ a
production-led commodity cost-driven low-road business model. The
model inevitably leads to poor labour practices coupled with
environmental abuses, including Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated
(IUU) fishing. The current model ensures that the world’s poorest
and most vulnerable populations are exploited, trafficked and made to
work in horrific conditions so that the fishing industry can maintain
effort. And the maintenance of this effort means that more fishing
vessels, operating on government subsidies, enter the oceans in
search for fish.

Dead animals recovered from the illegal driftnets, piled on the deck of the vessel. (Sea Shepherd Global/Tim Watters).

Consumers rarely eat fish that comes from their coasts anymore. The fishing
industry is trans-national in nature with vessels, crews, fishing
grounds, ports and markets being spread across the globe. And when
oceans cover 71% of this planet, a large section of which are outside
national jurisdiction, the complexities of ocean governance become
evident. Consider this, the United Nations Convention on the Law of
the Sea (UNCLOS), a convention that forms the basis for international
fisheries management, was adopted in 1982. We’re a mere 34 years
from when the first step to collectively govern the oceans was taken.
Just last week, the Port State Measures Agreement, a convention to
inspect fishing vessels in port came into force. While a step in the
right direction, it was adopted by only 30 countries. Most of the
world’s biggest fishing nations like China, Taiwan, Indonesia,
Japan, and India have not signed the agreement. Given that fisheries
capture is largely international in nature, it is entirely governed
under the UN Frameworks. National implementations of these frameworks
take time and in this sense, we’re at the very start of building
ocean governance measures.

Siddharth Chakravarty with some of the species found in the illegal driftnets. (Sea Shepherd Global/Tim Watters).

In spite of reports
from various agencies, including the UNFAO, that fish stocks are
being depleted faster than they can naturally replenish, the demand
for seafood ensures that fishing effort is not reduced. Our oceans
are in peril. We’re a long way from a unified and uniform ocean
governance regime. We’ve got a world with hungry people who need to
be fed. We’ve got a demand for seafood that is pushing communities
to the edge, allowing the trafficking of men and the destroying of
the marine ecosystem. The closest land-based analogy to industrial,
distant-water fishing would be a mining operation, where migrant
workers are forced to work in appalling conditions for a few cents an
hour, are often away from their families for years, are physically
and emotionally abused and are condemned to the dark reality for the
rest of their lives with little recourse to justice and equality- a
mine where the onus of labour and environmental regulatory mechanisms
is left entirely to the owners of the mine; a mine where toxic
runoffs, effluents and waste are regularly allowed to enter the
surrounding ecosystem leaving them degraded and nothing more than
wastelands.

Last week the Fisheries
Commissioner for my state opened the waters for Purse Seiners, a
fishing method used to catch schooling fish, including tuna. I met
the head of my state’s fishermen’s union, the Maharashtra
Macchimar Kruti Samiti, who expressed his concerns on the impact
of industrial fishing on the traditional Koli fishing communities.
The fishermen have already been displaced to the very fringe of the
existence in the city with the increase is industrialised fishing. As
fish stocks in the high sea and the Exclusive Economic Zone decrease,
the effects are felt closer to shore by the Koli fishermen. Now they
venture out to fish for long hours, travel perilous distances out to
sea in their small boats and get back catch that barely covers their
cost of fishing. It’s a special kind of fortitude to sit at the
roadside to sell fish every single day and yet manage to smile as I
pass by.

One of the 11 species, the critically endangered Southern Bluefin Tuna, in the illegal nets. (Sea Shepherd Global/Tim Watters).

The United Nations Food
and Agriculture Organisation (UNFAO) estimates that 800 million
people are malnourished across the world. Almost all of the people
are in developing countries, including India. Here in Bombay, a city
that is driven by an imminent sense of urgency at all times of the
day and night, hunger is everywhere. Hunger is in the eyes of the man
squatting under a tree, in the matted hair of a child at a traffic
signal, in the weak legs of the new mother with an infant at her
breast. And yet, in 33 years of my life, I have never been hungry.
I’ve never been hungry in the sense that I had to think of where my
next meal would come from. My folks worked long hours and hard jobs
and ensured I had access to food to nourish my body. My hunger has
always been one of choices.

When I pass the Koli
woman on the street, I see her fortitude. I think of her community
struggling to exist as they have for thousands of years. I understand
that my ability to make dietary choices does not automatically allow
me the right to pass a judgement on those who can’t do the same.

A Koli woman selling her daily catch of fish near the author's home in Bombay. (Sid Chakravarty).

Once I understood the
impact of my choices, I chose to give up seafood. I gave up seafood
because it matters. It matters because the child with the matted hair
needs it more. It matters because the Koli community needs to
survive. It matters because the blue marble we call home needs some
respite. It matters because the world needs time to figure things
out. If you have the time, the ability and the good fortune of having
a hunger that affords choices, then make the right choice because it
matters.

Siddharth Chakravarty has spent the last five years of his life with the direct action group Sea Shepherd Global. His current work involves the study into the economic model of the fishing industry and investigating labour supply chains to bring to light the ethics of seafood consumption and the effect of industrial fishing on the world's oceans. Follow Sid @OceanBanter and Facebook.